Canada: British man Tom Rolfe forced to leave the country for helping out with a little DIY

A 24-year-old British man has been told by Canadian authorities that he must leave the country and not return for 28 months after he helped his girlfriend decorate her new flat.

Tom Rolfe from Abergavenny in South Wales was told by immigration officials that he was "doing a Canadian out of a job" after they discovered pictures of him filling up cracks in the walls of his girlfriend Sam's apartment in Edmonton Alberta.

He said: "It is just ridiculous, I was just helping Sam to tidy up her flat before she sold it so we could get a place together.

"I was treated like a criminal and told I have eight days to get out of the country – it has wrecked our plans," he told the Mirror.

Rolfe had travelled to Canada on a tourist visa and was waiting for a residents' permit. He planned on opening a dog rescue centre in Edmonton.

The pair travelled to the US and then returned to Canada to renew Rolfe's visa. It was then that they were searched and interrogated by officials and kept in separate rooms over the course of a three-hour ordeal.

He said: "They looked through the photographs on my camera and saw pictures of me helping Sam fill cracks in her walls where pictures had been hanging. They said that by doing that I was denying a Canadian person a job.

"I was completely staggered when they said I had eight days to get out of the country. I'm done with Canada now. I thought they were part of the Commonwealth so I'm surprised to be treated like this.

"We have had to completely revise our plans all because I did a little bit of DIY around the house for my girlfriend."

A Canadian Border Services Agency spokeswoman refused to comment on Rolfe's ejection. She said: "We do not provide any specific information on any traveller's entry or status in Canada due to Canadian privacy laws."